GOP Senators’ Sycophancy Toward Trump Blocks Legislative Compromise

In a recent exchange in the media, one participant suggested that Democrats should go around Trump and negotiate directly with Republican Senators to put an end to the federal government shutdown.

IndieDems comment: What legerdemain of contorted reasoning leads anyone to the conclusion that the Republicans in the Senate will ever negotiate separately from Donald Trump? The last two years have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt: Senate (and House) Republicans–like Johnny Isakson and David Perdue–are the most absolute lap-dog sycophantic lackeys of Donald Trump. They are also cowards, totally lacking the courage to challenge him, even if they privately voice their disagreement with him.

There is one point about current American politics that is accepted as gospel truth by every politician, TV commentator, and editorial writer in the country: Republican politicians, like Isakson and Perdue, live in mortal fear of offending Trump. They know that one Tweet from Trump could provoke a GOP primary challenge and end their career overnight.

The 2018 elections only reinforced Trump’s near dictatorial control over the Republican Party. The Republicans who dared criticize him either saw the hand writing on the wall and announced they would not seek re-election, or ran and lost. And the winners who added to the GOP majority in the Senate are the most cringing Trump butt-kissers of all! Trump has purged the Republican Party the way Stalin used The Terror to purge the Communist Party.

Congressional Republicans will never reach a compromise with Democrats based on rational debate and a Democratic willingness to meet them half way. Republicans will do what their master tells them to do, especially on the wall, unless and until their own re-election is imperiled. And thanks mainly to gerrymandering, we are far, far from that day.